We announced in January
that Jenkins would be upgrading its Java runtime dependency to Java 8 this
year. After a sizable amount of preparation, this week’s release of
Jenkins 2.54 is the first weekly release to require
a Java 8 runtime.

For users of the weekly release, this means that Jenkins 2.54 must have
a Java 8 runtime installed on the system in order to
run. Those using the
jenkinsci/jenkins:latest
Docker container won’t need to take any action, as the Java runtime environment
is already bundled in the container.

In addition to upgrading the Java Runtime Environment for the master, any
connected agents must upgrade to a Java 8 runtime environment.

The Long-Term Support (LTS) release line however, has
not yet been updated to require Java 8. We are expecting the first LTS release
to require Java 8 in June.

Compatibility Notes

Using the Maven project type with Java 7

Users with jobs configured with the "Maven project" type may not be able to use
Java 7 for their Maven jobs. The correct behavior is not guaranteed so
proceed at your own risk. The Maven Project uses Jenkins Remoting to establish
"interceptors" within the Maven executable. Because of this, Maven uses
Remoting and other Jenkins core classes, and this behavior may break an update.